Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Two - Gifts

The nature of gift giving on Christmas takes its root in the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. This festival was the origin of the "eat, drink and be merry" principle of our modern Christmas celebrations. Saturnalia lasted a full week and consisted of singing, gambling, feasts, practical jokes, and even the switching of slave/master roles in jest, although there was still an understanding of the usual roles. But also during this week long celebration, people would make and give gifts to one another.

Because Saturnalia ended on December 23rd, the traditions continued on as Christmas celebrations. Early church leaders did not like these traditions, as they were clearly pagan rituals. Many people continued on anyway, justifying it by the fact that the magi came with gifts for Christ. There was also one particular man who made the tradition famous (More on him later). By the Middle Ages, the giving of gifts was a generally accepted part of Christmas.

Eventually, the tradition of concealing the gifts in baskets and plain paper developed in order to keep the presents a surprise until they were opened. By the early 1900s, colored ink had become readily available and fancier wrapping paper could be printed and sold to gift givers.

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day One - Christmas Day

Nowadays, December 25th is regarded as the traditional date of Christ’s birth, and therefore we celebrate it as such. It is, of course, not the actual date of His birth - there are no records that show the actual date. But why was December 25th chosen?

Early on, there was a great deal of debate concerning whether or not the birth of Christ should be celebrated at all. It was the way pagan kings were honored and many church leaders thought that it would be wrong to treat the Lord in the same manner. Those that did celebrate His birth chose a multitude of dates to recognise it, from Epiphany (January 6th) to just about any given date in the Spring, all for various reasons.

Choosing the date of December 25th was an extremely controversial decision because it was already an important date for pagan deities. On the ancient Roman calender, the 25th was the winter solstice. Since this was the day that daylight began to increase, it was celebrated by Romans as the “birth of the unconquered sun” and was also considered the birthday of Mithras, the Iranian sun god. In an apparent attempt to make these pagan holidays holy, the Christian church began to observe the birth of their Lord on that day.

In 336, Emperor Constantine declared Christmas (or Christ’s Mass) the major holiday for Christianity. Although the Eastern church still celebrated it on January 6th, most conformed to the new traditional date of the 25th of December. These days, most Western churches consider January 6th to be the date of the Magi’s arrival in Bethlehem.

Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmas time is here again, and we're pulling out the decorations, buying Christmas trees, singing carols, and fighting people in department stores. What a wonderful way to remember our Lord's birth.

I joke, but do you ever wonder where these strange traditions came from? Why do we, in fact, stick a tree in our house and decorate it? Why do we give gifts and kiss each other under a strange plant that we're not supposed to eat?

This holiday season, I've decided to do some research into our Christmas traditions so we can better understand the reasons for them. So, I will present twelve different topics on this hodge-podge of a holiday we celebrate.

New Blog

I've created a new blog, Eve of Destruction. I intend for it to become my main one. I'll still post on Spiritual Reboot from time to time, hopefully more often than not.

What Every Christian Should Know #1

Here is the last of the ten part series from Keith Giles' blog entitled Top Ten Things Every Christian Should Know (but Probably Doesn't). I think that this topic has been the main driving force of Spiritual Reboot from the get go, meaning that in all my humble ramblings there has been an intent to get back to what really matters in Christianity.

What Giles talks about in this post is probably the most important issue in Christianity. I only say that because it's what Christ himself talked about the majority of the time.

Here's a few snippets:

THE TOP 10 THINGS EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW (But Probably Doesn't)
By Keith Giles

Number 1- "The Gospel Is Not About Going To Heaven When You Die"

If you read the words of Jesus you'll quickly begin to notice that all he ever talks about is something called "The Kingdom of God." In fact, the only Gospel that Jesus ever talks about during his entire ministry on Earth was the Gospel of the Kingdom. There is no other Gospel.

Anyone who reads Matthew, Mark, Luke or John (the Gospels) will come away hearing all about The Gospel of the Kingdom from the mouth of Jesus. Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God was for here and now. This was the "Good News" in a nutshell- Anyone who wanted to enter God's Kingdom could do so on the spot. Jesus demonstrated what life in the Kingdom looked like. The Beattitudes are a picture of what life in the Kingdom looks like. Nearly every single parable of Jesus is designed to explain a particular facet of the Kingdom. His Sermon on the Mount declares the values of this Kingdom. His teachings are intended to show us how to live within the Kingdom, and His life was a blueprint for us to follow as we ourselves enter the Kingdom and learn from Him.

The only Gospel ever preached by Jesus is the message of The Kingdom of God. It was the new order where God's perfect will is always done in the lives of His followers. We do not need to wait until we die to enter God's Kingdom.

Many of us have been taught that the Gospel is about praying a prayer so that you can go to heaven when you die. This is false. Jesus never explained the Gospel in these terms. Instead, he talked about what it meant to follow him. He spoke about being a disciple. He described a way of life that was meant for today.

You can read the whole article here.

Change of Interest

It's been quite a long time since I've posted on this blog, and a much longer time since I've written anything original on here. I think that's because I'm becoming less interested in theology these days. As I continue toward the end of my college career, I find myself focusing mostly on subjects that fall into the more technical side of things.

That's not to say that I'm not interested in theology or Christianity at all. Of course I am. I always will be. But I've come to realise that I'm not studying to become a pastor or any major part of church ministry, save perhaps to help out in my home church from time to time. I believe that we are all called to be disciples, but only some are called to be leaders.

That being said, I will still post from time to time on Spiritual Reboot. But I've been considering the start of a new, more technical, slightly geeky blog (As if having a blog in itself isn't geeky enough). More to come on that, I think. But I may try to get back into my Old Testament studies again as well.

He Who is Without Sin

This is an excerpt from the book Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. It is a chapter prologue that I found very thought provoking and worth sharing. Incidentally, Card is an excellent author and I highly recommend his Ender's Game series.

A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death. (There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine, a Speaker for the Dead, has told me of two other rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.)

The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands, "Is there anyone here," he says to them, "who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?"

They murmur and say, "We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it."

The rabbi says, "Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong." He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, "Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he'll know I am his loyal servant."

So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another rabbi, another city, He goes to her and stops the mob, as in the other story, and says, "Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone."

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I'll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I wish to be treated.

As they open their hands and let the stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman's head, and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones.

"Nor am I without sin," he says to the people. "But if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our city with it."

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him.

-- San Angelo, Letters to on Incipient Heretic, trans. Amai a Tudomundo Para Que Deus Vos Ame Crist o, 103:72:54:2